Windows 7 Default File System Permissions Listing

This is a complete listing of all Windows 7 file system permissions. The list was generated on a 32-bit installation with SetACL. More default permission listings can be found here.

How to Interpret the List

As mentioned above the list contains only non-inherited permissions. This means that if permission X is set on C:\ and the directory C:\Data is configured to not block inherited permissions, X is valid on C:\Data, too. The permissions of C:\Data will not be included in this listing, though, because that would increase its size by a factor of 100 at least.

If a directory is configured to not inherit permissions from its parent it is marked with “DACL(protected)” or “DACL(pseudo_protected)”. A directory that does inherit from its parent can still add permissions not present in the parent. Those are listed here, of course.

Remarks

I found hundreds of directories where inheritance is blocked but the parent’s permissions are re-set on the child. That is just bad style and should not happen. By enabling inheritance setting identical permissions on a child object becomes unnecessary. In order to keep this list concise, such redundant information was removed. For the same reason, this listing contains only non-inherited permissions.

The computer where I created this listing was a domain member and had a local user account named “Helge”.